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Albums by British cabaret bands who spe­cial­ize in soul and jazz are a pretty small sub­genre of recorded music.  That shouldn’t sur­prise any­body. However, it was a sur­prise when the peo­ple at Licorice Soul Records assem­bled a strong com­pi­la­tion from this tiny pool of mate­r­ial.  In 2009, they man­aged to assem­ble a cred­i­ble sec­ond vol­ume.  That’s a minor mir­a­cle.  The fact that it’s a fun, solid lis­ten is the icing on the cabaret cake.

Working Man’s Soul 2 dif­fers from its pre­de­ces­sor in a cru­cial way: there is more of an accent on songs.  Fully half of the selec­tions fea­ture vocals, most of them being cov­ers of pop chart mate­r­ial recon­fig­ured for the dance floor.  For exam­ple, Mythology’s take on the Uriah Heep favorite “Easy Livin” bleeds out the crunch­ing guitar-and-organ assault of the orig­i­nal to trans­form it into a jazzy lit­tle groover anchored by Ray Manzarek-styled keys while New Jersey Turnpike’s redux of the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running” dis­penses with the acoustic gui­tars of the orig­i­nal to push for­ward the organ play­ing and funky backbeat.

There are also cov­ers of con­ven­tional soul mate­r­ial done in an English soul-boy man­ner:  Vince Earl Attraction’s take on “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” might lack the velour-soul smooth­ness of the Barry White orig­i­nal but it suc­ceeds on pure con­vic­tion and Black Abbots’ cover of the Stax fave “Soul Man” is a barn­stormer in a man­ner rem­i­nis­cent of The Commitments.  However, the most inter­est­ing vocal-based entry is an orig­i­nal by Quartz enti­tled “Social Values.”  It’s a wah-wah-driven lite funkster with eccen­tric yet heart­felt social com­men­tary lyrics.

Fans of the first volume’s instru­men­tals should rest assured that there are plenty of qual­ity instru­men­tal moments here.  The ABC Hit Band’s ren­di­tion of Deodato’s “Super Strut” is a slick slab of dance-funk laced with some nice synth and gui­tar solos while Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra’s “Sax Bap” deliv­ers horn-driven, per­cus­sive jazz-funk wor­thy of the best car-chase sound­track cues from the 1970’s.   Also, look out for Gary Allcock’s Midland Jazz Stars’ brassy instru­men­tal cover of “Norwegian Wood”: it swings and blares with a con­ta­gious, uncon­trolled energy.

Working Man’s Soul 2 also sand­wiches in a few fun nov­el­ties:  Graham Smith’s take on “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” off­sets its deli­ciously chintzy organ work with some rock-solid drum­ming but the win­ner in this arena is the Melodian’s steel-drum ver­sion of “Fur Elise.” Crazy as that combo might sound, the fin­ished prod­uct is a breezy, win­ning lit­tle groover.  The lat­ter descrip­tion would also make a good way to pitch this disc overall.

Track list­ing, sound clips & more info at the Licorice Soul web­site: http://www.licoricesoul.co.uk/index.php